By the Rev. C. Collier, M.A., F.S.A. 



299 



as in those priories which were under the great abbeys. Some of 

 these became societies within themselves, and received the revenues 

 belonging to their several houses for their own use and support, 

 paying only the ancient apport or acknowledgment to the foreign 

 house. Others depended entirely on the foreign houses, who ap- 

 pointed and removed their priors at pleasure. The " Monasticon " 

 gives a list of one hundred of these priories. These alien priories 

 were first seized by Edward I. in 1285, on the breaking out of the 

 war between France and England. Edward III. confiscated them 

 and afterwards restored them in 1361. They were eventually all 

 dissolved by Henry V., and their estates vested in the Crown, except 

 Fotheringhay. In general, the lands w ere appropriated to religious 

 uses. Our Church, with its appurtenances, a hide and thirteen acres 

 of land, several rents, and other possessions, such as the tithes of 

 the demesne within the parish, viz., tithe of yearly increase of little 

 pigs, of horses, of cheese, of special pannage, one pig on the feast 

 of S. Martin, free range in the King's woods for ten hogs, wood 

 for fences, for making the monks' sandals, fuel for the bake and 

 brew-houses, and pasturage for the King's own beasts, were given 

 to the French abbey of St. Florence, at Saumur in Anjou, by 

 William the Conqueror, and it became a cell to that monastery. 

 Some say the Church was granted to that Benedictine monastery 

 by William Rufus. Dugdale says the Conqueror granted it, but Foss, 

 in his " Lives of the Chancellors," says : — " The deed of gift begins, 

 f The King W having subjugated the land of Engl d ->' &c," and states 

 that if the king, William, had made the grant, he would have used 

 the first person. The first witness to the deed is Robert, Bishop of 

 Lincoln. There was no bishop of that name in the Conqueror's 

 time, while there was a Robert Blase, bishop of Lincoln in 1093. 

 S. Florent was a Benedictine abbey in the province of Anjou, founded 

 by the Emperor Charlemagne. In 1414 (2nd of Henry V.) the 

 Priory of Andover was dissolved by deed (and this deed was con- 

 firmed by Edward IV.), and its possessions given to Winchester 

 College, by whom it is still held. This priory is said to have been 

 one of the first acquisitions of Winchester College after its foundation 

 by William of Wykeham. There is some evidence that it was 



